Category Archives: Fullmetal Alchemist

Title of the work: They Just Were
Author/Artist: foxipher
Pairing: Winry Rockbell/Sheska
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist
Theme: #15: perfect blue (this was a theme challenge for the 30_kisses Livejournal community 6 years ago)
Disclaimer: None of the characters or worlds in this story are mine. They are property of their respective owners. Sheska’s last name is a fangirling of Lieutenant Commander Susan Ivanova from Babylon 5. Yomiko Readman (alternate universe) is from Read or Die.
Rating: PG-13

Warning: Movie spoilers, shoujo-ai.

If anyone could wear their heart in their eyes, Winry Rockbell was the champion. She could never hide what she felt, and it bothered her sometimes. It never ceased to amaze her clients when they saw the intensity in her eyes around anything involving automail. They placed their trust in her, because they saw the confidence and ability in her eyes. For those critical minutes, they were perfect, the shining blue antidote to the fears and apprehensions that accompany many medically mechanical surgeries.

*******

For as long as Sheska Ivanova could remember, she loved the written word. Her earliest memory was of her childhood friend Yomiko, who was six years her senior, teaching her how to read letters and sound out simple words like “cat” or “dog”. Sheska had inherited the love of books from her parents, who were both middle-class, well-educated people. Books were her solace and her comfort. She would wander among shelves of them, stroking their spines and caressing their covers with a lover’s touch. Her childhood favorite, “The Little Alchemist That Could”, was so well-loved that it was falling to pieces, but to her, its familiar blue cover was perfect.

*******

Neither woman could point out exactly why or when it happened, but they both became somewhat aware of it after their adventures in phone-tapping. They began to spend more time together, Sheska reading voraciously as Winry tinkered with this or that project. They settled into a comfortable friendship that involved more companionable silence than talking, and they liked it that way. Winry knew that anything she said to Sheska while reading would have to be repeated at least three times, and Sheska knew that moving Winry’s projects or tools was a good way to make her angry. Nothing much happened, not even after they had realized that Ed and Al were gone through the Gate for good.

And yet, something was indeed different.

Winry would lean on the back of Sheska’s chair and read over her shoulder if she was reading anything mechanical, and Sheska would feign unawareness of Winry’s soft breasts brushing her upper back, and of her breath quiet in her ear. Likewise, Winry would start lively discussions on something they’d read, and she’d pretend not to be attracted to the sparkle in Sheska’s eyes as she bloomed beneath the attention. They both felt vaguely unsettled, but couldn’t or wouldn’t admit the true roots of their feelings to themselves.

One hot summer afternoon, the two women were sitting underneath a tree to escape the heat. Winry’s neck was stiff from building automail all morning, and Sheska had removed her glasses to give her eyes a rest. Both were grateful for the break, and they sat companionably next to each other, chatting about not-much-at-all. Winry stretched, moving her neck and lifting her arms. Sheska had closed her eyes, and opened them to find Winry’s gently smiling face about twelve inches from her own.

‘Why did I never see’, she thought, ‘how perfectly blue her eyes are?’

As Winry’s soft lips touched her own, Sheska closed her eyes again and soared.